Alas, here is my office / dumping room.

I’ve got to get rid of the broken mini-blinds, held together with painters’ tape …

Obviously, this mess cannot be fixed in one evening. I think I may have fodder for the rest of the month here!

Here is the area I focused on tonight:

I started straightening up my chorale music. It was supposed to be filed in that plastic file box seen above in the middle of the room, but usually I just pile the music near the box. (The box may have previously been between the bookshelf and the nightstand, but I recently had to dig out my holiday music.)

I did make another pile to the left of the bookshelf, but at least it’s like items. I put all mementos from my parents’ attic, photo albums and yearbooks together. I have to figure out what to do with all of that so I can complete this project!

Here’s where we are now:

Of course now that it’s a bit cleaner, it seems to have become a walkway for my cats …

We will have a short day tomorrow, the office is closing at 3 for Thanksgiving. My husband and I have been celebrating this holiday at home for the past few years, choosing to spend the day together and eating way too much.

I am thankful that we don’t have to travel! We get to come home and enjoy a long weekend!

We have very few cat-safe surfaces to put anything breakable. One is on top of the TV. Another is the fireplace mantle.

I threw away all the junk, filed a few important items that were stashed up there for safe keeping, and decided my running watches and waist pack (that I have not used since the summer) can find a new home.

After it was relatively clean, I moved some of the knick-knacks to other locations, thinking I would to try to form a better display.

And I realized I have no idea how to create a decent-looking display with what was left!

This is what I came up with:

It’ll do for now.

Can you believe I still have more problem areas in the house? But, I am happy to report the first floor is shaping up nicely.

I am thankful that I can almost open my doors to unannounced company without embarrassment!

This is our guest room:

Good thing we don’t have guests too often!

When we come home from trips, it’s just easier to put the suitcases in here rather than in the attic. And the random other bags came from all over the house as I’ve been cleaning my other messes!

The clothes hanging were just there to dry, they’ve been returned to my still-clean closet.

I threw out the gross old pillows, and found a better place to store the good ones. The suitcases have returned to the attic, and I’ve stored the smaller bags in a bin.

The bin on the bottom left is full of my husband’s baseball cards. That heavy bin can stay there! On top of that is some more of his stuff.

Still shoved on top of the clothes rod are two garbage bags full of stuffed animals from my childhood. Some I can get rid of, some I will keep. I just haven’t found a better place for them yet. There’s also a bag full of dolls between the bins (souvenirs from my grandmother’s travels to other countries) that I need to do something with!

The amazon.com box is full of holiday decorations, I figured I can keep that out of the attic for now!

At least we can do this:

It’s been a long time since that’s happened!

On this 18th day of thanks, I am thankful I’ve been able to keep the cleaning streak going!

And by “crap,” I mean this:

That folding door made it tough to really capture the essence of the disaster in our coat closet, but I think you can see the improvement:

There’s just subfloor in there. I’m going to tile it with peel-and-stick tiles I have leftover from the guest bathroom.

My husband had a habit of tossing his coats on the closet floor, probably because it was easier to do that than try to stuff them into the over-full closet.

We’ve weeded out a few coats we don’t want, so that shouldn’t be a problem anymore:

When I said “a few,” I meant a dozen!

When we moved into this house over six years ago, some stuff never really got unpacked. There were a few bags and a crate of stuff on the closet floor. We also shoved things in there that we didn’t really want. I now have the beginnings of a yard sale collection started in the garage!

I was prompted to tackle this project tonight because I just found a great new leather jacket. I’ve had my old one for years and it’s really worn, though I’ll still save it for bad weather. I’ll try to keep the new one out of the pouring rain!

I got a good deal on my new coat at the outlet mall. I also got more shoes! (Yes, I needed more shoes. Don’t worry, I’ve made room and the closet is still in order!)

Today, I am thankful for outlet bargains!

When we bought this TV, we knew it wasn’t going to fit in our old entertainment center. We knocked out a CD shelf, and were surprised that it was still sturdy enough to hold up the top shelf. Still, it was an old unit we got just out of college.

We’ve had this TV, and half-broken entertainment center, for a few years now. Over the summer, I started a quest to find a new cabinet, but it turns out our TV is unusually large. Most cabinets are about 19-21 inches deep, while this TV needs at least 24 inches.

So the temporary cabinet remains.

It also happens to be one of the only cat-safe places to put things. Occasionally they (well, usually just Joey) feel mischievous and climb up there, but it doesn’t happen often. So we stash all our crap up there.

I cleaned up the junk, removed a few candles, and decided the coconut parrot carving didn’t really need to be the centerpiece of our living room any longer. There’s still a lot of stuff up there, but it’s better, and it’s been dusted!

(Yes, whenever I clean the top of the entertainment center, I put all my husband’s sunglasses on the cat sculpture!)

Today my office closed early for our quarterly meeting. It was at the International Spy Museum in D.C. I had never been there before, and it was pretty cool. Of course, we had private access (no tourists), and a few drinks (on the company) first!

For my 30 days of thanks, I’ve already mentioned the great company I work for, but today I am thankful for our fun events!